第60章

What I complained of in my heart was not the dining--which, for this once, was plentiful and comfortable enough--but the prodigious dulness of the talking part of the entertainment.O my beloved brother Snobs of the City, if we love each other no better than our country brethren, at least we amuse each other more; if we bore ourselves, we are not called upon to go ten miles to do it!

For instance, the Hipsleys came ten miles from the south, and the Hawbucks ten miles from the north, of the Evergreens; and were magnates in two different divisions of the county of Mangelwurzelshire.Hipsley, who is an old baronet, with a bothered estate, did not care to show his contempt for Hawbuck, who is a new creation, and rich.Hawbuck, on his part, gives himself patronizing airs to General Sago, who looks upon the Pontos as little better than paupers.'Old Lady Blanche,' says Ponto, 'Ihope will leave something to her god-daughter--my second girl--we've all of us half-poisoned ourselves with taking her physic.'

Lady Blanche and Lady Rose Fitzague have, the first, a medical, and the second a literary turn.I am inclined to believe the former had a wet COMPRESSE around her body, on the occasion when I had the happiness of meeting her.She doctors everybody in the neighbourhood of which she is the ornament; and has tried everything on her own person.She went into Court, and testified publicly her faith in St.John Long: she swore by Doctor Buchan, she took quantities of Gambouge's Universal Medicine, and whole boxfuls of Parr's Life Pills.She has cured a multiplicity of headaches by Squinstone's Eye-snuff; she wears a picture of Hahnemann in her bracelet and a lock of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch.She talked about her own complaints and those of her CONFIDANTE for the time being, to every lady in the room successively, from our hostess down to Miss Wirt, taking them into corners, and whispering about bronchitis, hepatitis, St.Vitus, neuralgia, cephalalgia, and so forth.I observed poor fat Lady Hawbuck in a dreadful alarm after some communication regarding the state of her daughter Miss Lucy Hawbuck's health, and Mrs.Sago turned quite yellow, and put down her third glass of Madeira, at a warning glance from Lady Blanche.

Lady Rose talked literature, and about the book-club at Guttlebury, and is very strong in voyages and travels.

She has a prodigious interest in Borneo, and displayed a knowledge of the history of the Punjaub and Kaffirland that does credit to her memory.Old General Sago, who sat perfectly silent and plethoric, roused up as from a lethargy when the former country was mentioned, and gave the company his story about a hog-hunt at Ramjugger.Iobserved her ladyship treated with something like contempt her neighbour the Reverend Lionel Pettipois, a young divine whom you may track through the country by little 'awakening' books at half-a-crown a hundred, which dribble out of his pockets wherever he goes.I saw him give Miss Wirt a sheaf of 'The Little Washer-woman on Putney Common,' and to Miss Hawbuck a couple of dozen of 'Meat in the Tray; or the Young Butcher-boy Rescued;' and on paying a visit to Guttlebury gaol, I saw two notorious fellows waiting their trial there (and temporarily occupied with a game of cribbage), to whom his Reverence offered a tract as he was walking over Crackshins Common, and who robbed him of his purse, umbrella, and cambric handkerchief, leaving him the tracts to distribute elsewhere.